quotations about faith
Scepticism has never founded empires, established principles, or changed the world's heart. The great doers of history have always been men of faith.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
No man can be any greater of any stronger, in Christianity, than his faith.
JAMES WADDEL ALEXANDER
Faith
I will not doubt, though sorrows fall like rain,
And troubles swarm like bees about a hive;
I shall believe the heights for which I strive
Are only reached by anguish and by pain;
And though I groan and tremble with my crosses,
I yet shall see, through my severest losses,
The greater gain.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX
"Faith"
Christianity, just as much as Islam, teaches children that unquestioned faith is a virtue. You don't have to make the case for what you believe. If somebody announces that it is part of his faith, the rest of society, whether of the same faith, or another, or of none, is obliged, by ingrained custom, to "respect" it without question; respect it until the day it manifests itself in a horrible massacre like the destruction of the World Trade Center, or the London or Madrid bombings.
RICHARD DAWKINS
The God Delusion
When men are about to commit, or sanction the commission of some injustice, it is not uncommon for them to express pity for the object either of that or some parallel proceeding, and to feel themselves, at the time, quite virtuous and moral, and immensely superior to those who express no pity at all. This is a kind of upholding of faith above works, and is very comfortable.
CHARLES DICKENS
Nicholas Nickleby
I slept with faith and found a corpse in my arms on awakening; I drank and danced all night with doubt and found her a virgin in the morning.
ALEISTER CROWLEY
The Book of Lies
However logical our induction, the end of the thread is fastened upon the assurance of faith.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
Faith was a longing that pretended to be a conviction.
IVAN KLIMA
Waiting for the Dark
At bottom, knowledge of God in faith is always this indirect knowledge of God, knowledge of God in His works, and in these particular works in the determining and using of certain creaturely realities to bear witness to the divine objectivity. What distinguishes faith from unbelief, erroneous faith and superstition is that it is content with this indirect knowledge of God.
KARL BARTH
Church Dogmatics
The discoveries of science have proved that the opinions concerning a firmament above, and a flat earth beneath, are completely inaccurate; but faith delights more in sublimity than truth; it soars far above science in its discoveries, and holds accuracy in contempt.
ETHAN ALLEN
Reason: The Only Oracle of Man
Faith I have, in myself, in humanity, in the worthwhileness of the pursuits in entertainment for the masses. But wide awake, not blind faith, moves me.
WALT DISNEY
The Gospel According to Disney
Faith comes in different tempers: there's the hard, brittle faith that shatters when it meets an obstacle it can't cut through, and the tough, springy faith that bounces off unchipped.
K. J. PARKER
Devices and Desires
Faith ... is a conscious apprehension of something inevident, something which unlike this desk and this chair is not seen to be there, even if it enters into the fabric of our personal relations to reality with at least as much force, relevance, and moment as things which are seen to be there.
BERNARD LONERGAN
A Second Collection
I practice a faith that's been long abandoned
Ain't no altars on this long and lonesome road
BOB DYLAN
"Ain't Talkin'"
I have learned that faith means trusting in advance what will only make sense in reverse.
PHILIP YANCEY
Finding God in Unexpected Places
For, no: not faith by fable lives,
But from the faith the fable springs
-- It never is the song that gives
Tongue life, it is the tongue that sings;
And sings the song.
ROBERT PENN WARREN
Love's Voice
They bring me faith like a closed package in someone else's plate. They want me to accept it so that I don't open it.
FERNANDO PESSOA
The Book of Disquiet
I'm wary of faith outside of actions. I'm wary of religiosity that ignores the wider world.
BONO
Rolling Stone, Nov. 3, 2005
Faith may have removed mountains way off somewhere, a long time ago, but it won't remove a wart at home this week.
EDGAR WATSON HOWE
Country Town Sayings
Faith only shuts the eye of reason, not picks it out.
WILLIAM MCEWEN
Selected Essays Doctrinal & Practical